When it came down to it, only 40 Democrats stood with the president. Maybe that’s because the president just isn’t a very convincing arm-twister. Maybe it’s because Nancy Pelosi let it be known that she wanted this bill to fail.
That’s kind of funny, though, because I was getting cynical comments in my threads last night and this morning about what a travesty it was that Pelosi was whipping the bill for the president. I was reading articles that said that she was getting into arguments with progressives who thought she was in the tank for free trade.
It made me think, “Hey, maybe I don’t know anything about politics after all.”
Except, look what happened.
In the end, it’s the results, not the presentation, that matter. Do you seriously think that the Pelosi sprung this on the administration at the last minute after promising to get them some votes?
That’s the way it’s being reported but I don’t buy it.
Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, spent much of this year saying she was trying to find “a path to yes” on the Pacific Rim trade deal sought by President Barack Obama, her close ally.
But on Friday, with legislation central to Obama’s pact coming before the House, Pelosi revealed she would vote “no,” joining other Democrats in handing the president a stunning defeat and leaving his trade agenda in limbo.
“When Leader Pelosi announced that she was voting against TAA, for undecided members it sealed the deal,” said Representative Steve Israel, a senior House Democrat.
Yeah, for some reason I just don’t think this came as a surprise to the people in the administration who are supposed to know what is going to happen. Nancy doesn’t roll like that.
After you get done reading about what a devastating blow this was for the president and how fractured the Democrats are over the issue, look at where the rubber meets the road:
“The overwhelming vote today is a clear indication that it’s time for Republicans to sit down with Democrats to negotiate a trade promotion authority bill that is a better deal for the American people,” Pelosi wrote to Democrats after the vote.
A better deal. Or no deal.
Who’s the audience for that message?
Could it be the TPP partners? Could it be the business community here at home? Could it be the Republican leadership?
Whoever is supposed to get the message, it wasn’t a message that the president was unprepared to send.
Right now roughly a third of the country and virtually all of the GOP is completely off their rockers. Our country is on the edge of going very very wrong, very quickly. No GD way Pelosi and Obama don’t see this and are not discussing what to do.
There is no GD way Pelosi did this without consultation with the POTUS.
.
Excellent question.
My first guess: the Davos types.
or something. Can’t be that Obama miscalculated or over reached or (God Forbid) was caught unaware.
Alternate theory: Both the establishment and leftist Dems overestimated the power of the corporate wing of the Democratic and Republican parties and went into the entire deal with bad assumptions.
Stuff like this is basically why I don’t buy into shadowy plutocrat conspiracy theories and I think that a lot of economic centrist policy is a result of them really truly believing in nonsense like balanced budgets and free trade and whatnot rather than the 0.1% putting horse heads in Obama and Pelosi’s beds.
Along the lines of your argument, this link was provided by a commenter at BJ in a post earlier today:
http://andrewtobias.com/column/fast-track-and-trade/
I guess the way I want to respond to this is by saying that I think you’ve got the wrong framework for thinking about the TPP.
Maybe it will help just to look at he genesis for the thing:
So, here’s what I want you to consider.
First, this got its initial impetus from a smaller deal involving countries that are pretty tangential to the American economy but are nonetheless allies of ours and important to our national interests in various respects. They were undoubtedly proceeding with our blessing and some guidance, too. But mainly they were demonstrating that they believe in our postwar system.
Second, that the idea for TPP originated and got real momentum during the latter part of Bush’s second term, and that Obama inherited a process that already had the recent endorsement of Australia (as well as Vietnam and Peru). In other words, this was something our most important Pacific ally (other than Japan) was invested in.
Now, he could have just walked away right then. But based on what? That free trade is bad? Our whole postwar policy is based on the idea that free trade prevents fighting wars by promoting understanding, reducing jealousies, eliminating economic warfare, and hopefully contributing to greater overall productivity.
Could we encourage this behavior in our allies while rejecting it ourselves?
We’d certainly have to explain ourselves if we suddenly told New Zealand, Chile, and Australia that we don’t want to engage in a treaty with them that we encourage them to conclude with each other.
You see, the TPP isn’t just some trade deal. It’s a manifestation of a whole world order and the ideology underpinning it. And America is the architect and evangelist for this system.
Obama could not walk away from that.
What he did instead was bring in Japan, Canada and Mexico, and eventually South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan.
Now, suddenly, he had the whole pro-American (or, at least, anti-Soviet, anti-China) coalition in the tent.
Now he had a coalition that could produce something really meaningful. But that doesn’t mean that they could agree to something that would be popular in the United States, especially on the left.
It also doesn’t mean that Obama could produce an outcome he thought would be good for the country or the party. At least, not if he had to pass it through Congress.
So, it’s one thing to work on it. He had little choice but to work on it. It’s another thing to think you can actually pass it. And if you want a better deal, sometimes the only way to get it is to prove you can’t pass it.
So, it would be wrong to say that the entire effort is in bad faith. But I highly doubt that they’ve been blindsided by their inability to sell this thing as is.
And I don’t think they really want this thing as is.
I know that Obama put on the full court press for this bill at the end, but he didn’t show he cared much about it for six years.
As far as I can tell, he’s happy to have it stalled, particularly because it’s the greatest gift he can give Hillary.
Our whole postwar policy is based on the idea that free trade prevents fighting wars by promoting understanding, reducing jealousies, eliminating economic warfare, and hopefully contributing to greater overall productivity.
Is that why we’ve overthrown all sorts of democratically elected governments?
Well, kind of, yeah.
I mean, the kind of democratic governments we’ve opposed are ones that don’t believe in opening up their markets and their resources to foreign trade and investment without restrictions.
So, basically, the economic has trumped the political.
Although, you also need to consider the Soviet influence and the geo-military implications in some instances. But these are so closely related that it’s hard to separate them.
Except in most instances, the “Soviet influence” was about as real as Iraq’s WMD. And often enough, “Soviet influence” came after US efforts to overthrow governments.
Well, Cuba and Iran turned out to matter, not that we handled either well, at all.
Huh? Cuba and Iran are examples of where US covert regime change efforts failed and so far, hasn’t led to the military option. But the list of “hot” and “cold” US actions that resulted in overthrowing governments that didn’t accept US demands is very long.
that’s a brief comment, so I understand that brevity is your enemy here.
But, on its own, your comment is somewhere between completely wrong and totally nonsensical.
Unless you want to call twenty-six years of rule by the Shah a failed coup or you want the USSR loading up Cuba with nuclear rockets a non-military option.
Losing Iran and Cuba mattered. Losing Vietnam was less of a problem than fighting for it.
Huh?
We, aka the US, didn’t “lose” anything with the Iranian and Cuban revolutions. BP and other western corporations lost investments/markets in Iran and the mob and affiliated businesses lost in Cuba. Castro didn’t even touch the US diplomatic residence in Havana (a gift from FDR iirc) that has remained a fairly well kept secret from Americans.
That’s a borderline insane comment.
If you want to be contrarian, better to argue that we earned the losses than that they weren’t brutal losses with nasty lingering consequences, including the near annihilation of all of humanity.
The US didn’t own or possess Iran or Cuba; therefore, to refer to their changes in government as something the US “lost” isn’t rational.
Isn’t one of the core aspects of US claims to “exceptionalism” the notion that we control the world and act accordingly? How many Iranians and Cubans endorse the perspective that the “US lost” their countries?
Relationships between individuals and countries can be difficult and sometimes impossible. But casting individuals or other countries as entities that one can either win or lose is the stuff that leads to interpersonal murders and unilateral wars.
I mean, the kind of democratic governments we’ve opposed are ones that don’t believe in opening up their markets and their resources to foreign trade and investment without restrictions.
You do realize what you’re implying here, right? Why are we, still, trying to overthrow Venezuela’s government? You do realize what the EU, IMF and World Bank are trying to break Greece, right? Foreign trade and investment have nothing to do with it. It’s about corporate greed. When is the last time we’ve overthrown a right-wing government? Have we ever? You do know why we overthrew Mosaddegh and why we want to overthrow Maduro, right?
I don’t think I’m implying anything.
It’s all very straightforward.
You can put a more positive spin on it that you do.
I certainly would.
But it is what it is.
It’s America!
I think she said if the bill isn’t going to pass she’s not going to die on the hill. None of that means she didn’t want it to pass or wasn’t whipping votes. I basically find your position on the procedure here strange. Your bending over backwards to give Obama a pass on this but the evidence we have says that’s less likely. Not that we have all that much to go on, I’ll grant.
EXACTLY what I was thinking, Boo. You’re scary sometimes.
Whaddayou, kiddin’ me or what, Booman!!!???
I repeat: “disorder, confusion, chaos, untidiness, disorganization, dishevelment, mess, muddle, clutter, jumble, tangle, shambles…”
The entire country…the entire society and culture…is in an increasingly serious state of “disarray.”
Why would anyone think that the sole exception would be the DemocRatic party.
Please!!!
Oh.
Wait a minute!!!
You are essentially working for the DemRats.
Oh.
I am so sorry!!!
Nevermind.
Yore freind,
Emily Litella